TRIP TO TANZANIA
One afternoon while in Ilula, Berit took me to visit the Kindole family. The 3 brothers, Sadiki, Amin, Bisheni are all in the IOP program. Their younger sister also lives with them. I was able to meet their mom, whom they live with. Mom has had a stroke, and has very little use of one arm. They invited us into their home, a very simple brick home, with a grass roof. Daylight could be seen through the roof. They had some small wooden stools that they invited us to sit on. What we here in the states would call the living room, was an area about 10ft by 15ft. There were some sticks in the corner, which they used for firewood, and a couple of buckets in the room.
Not much else. No electricity, no telephone, no running water, no indoor toilet. The room had a dirt floor, as did the rest of the house. They also slept on the dirt floor. The boys said that when it rained, they would have to move to find a dry spot to sleep. They brought out an old Swahili hymnal, which was in very poor condition; the binding had fallen apart, so they had used a piece of wire to hold the pages together. I got the feeling that this was a prized possession of theirs. We sang a hymn or two with them. One of the brothers came into the room with some freshly cooked corn on the cob. It was for us. I knew they had very little food in the house, probably just some flour, the corn I’m sure was freshly picked. The importance of the orphan program really sank in that day. These kids, and others like them, would have no chance at all of an education without assistance from a program such as ours. Without an education, the cycle of extreme poverty would just be repeated in their lives.
Ron P.
IOP Child Coordinator